WATERLOO STATION, SOME FELLOW-TRAVELLERS, AND A GIRL WITH BROWN HAIR
The austerity of Waterloo Station was lightened on the following
morning at ten minutes to eleven, when I arrived to catch the train to
Combe Regis, by several gleams of sunshine and a great deal of bustle
and activity on the various platforms. A porter took my suitcase and
golf-clubs, and arranged an assignation on Number 6 platform. I bought
my ticket, and made my way to the bookstall, where, in the interests of
trade, I inquired in a loud and penetrating voice if they had got
Jeremy Garnet's "Manoeuvres of Arthur." Being informed that they had
not, I clicked my tongue reproachfully, advised them to order in a
supply, as the demand was likely to be large, and spent a couple of
shillings on a magazine and some weekly papers. Then, with ten minutes
to spare, I went off in search of Ukridge.
I found him on platform six. The eleven-twenty was already alongside,
and presently I observed my porter cleaving a path towards me with the
suit-case and golf-bag.
"Here you are!" shouted Ukridge vigorously. "Good for you. Thought you
were going to miss it."
I shook hands with the smiling Mrs. Ukridge.
"I've got a carriage and collared two corner seats. Millie goes down in
another. She doesn't like the smell of smoke when she's travelling.
Hope we get the carriage to ourselves. Devil of a lot of people here
this morning. Still, the more people there are in the world, the more
eggs we shall sell. I can see with half an eye that all these blighters
are confirmed egg-eaters. Get in, sonnie. I'll just see the missis into
her carriage, and come back to you."
I entered the compartment, and stood at the door, looking out in the
faint hope of thwarting an invasion of fellow-travellers. Then I
withdrew my head suddenly and sat down. An elderly gentleman,
accompanied by a pretty girl, was coming towards me. It was not this
type of fellow traveller whom I had hoped to keep out. I had noticed
the girl at the booking office. She had waited by the side of the queue
while the elderly gentleman struggled gamely for the tickets, and I had
had plenty of opportunity of observing her appearance. I had debated
with myself whether her hair should rightly be described as brown or
golden. I had finally decided on brown. Once only had I met her eyes,
and then only for an instant. They might be blue. They might be grey. I
could not be certain. Life is full of these problems.
"This seems to be tolerably empty, my dear Phyllis," said the elderly
gentleman, coming to the door of the compartment and looking in.
"You're sure you don't object to a smoking-carriage?"
"Oh no, father. Not a bit."
"Then I think ..." said the elderly gentleman, getting in.
The inflection of his voice suggested the Irishman. It was not a
brogue. There were no strange words. But the general effect was Irish.
"That's good," he said, settling himself and pulling out a cigar case.
The bustle of the platform had increased momentarily, until now, when,
from the snorting of the engine, it seemed likely that the train might
start at any minute, the crowd's excitement was extreme. Shrill cries
echoed down the platform. Lost sheep, singly and in companies, rushed
to and fro, peering eagerly into carriages in search of seats. Piercing
voices ordered unknown "Tommies" and "Ernies" to "keep by aunty, now."
Just as Ukridge returned, that _sauve qui peut_ of the railway crowd,
the dreaded "Get in anywhere," began to be heard, and the next moment
an avalanche of warm humanity poured into the carriage.
The newcomers consisted of a middle-aged lady, addressed as Aunty, very
stout and clad in a grey alpaca dress, skin-tight; a youth called
Albert, not, it was to appear, a sunny child; a niece of some twenty
years, stolid and seemingly without interest in life, and one or two
other camp-followers and retainers.
Ukridge slipped into his corner, adroitly foiling Albert, who had made
a dive in that direction. Albert regarded him fixedly and reproachfully
for a space, then sank into the seat beside me and began to chew
something that smelt of aniseed.
Aunty, meanwhile, was distributing her substantial weight evenly
between the feet of the Irish gentleman and those of his daughter, as
she leaned out of the window to converse with a lady friend in a straw
hat and hair curlers, accompanied by three dirty and frivolous boys. It
was, she stated, lucky that she had caught the train. I could not agree
with her. The girl with the brown hair and the eyes that were neither
blue or grey was bearing the infliction, I noticed, with angelic calm.
She even smiled. This was when the train suddenly moved off with a
jerk, and Aunty, staggering back, sat down on the bag of food which
Albert had placed on the seat beside him.
"Clumsy!" observed Albert tersely.
"_Albert_, you mustn't speak to Aunty so!"
"Wodyer want to sit on my bag for then?" said Albert disagreeably.
They argued the point. Argument in no wise interfered with Albert's
power of mastication. The odour of aniseed became more and more
painful. Ukridge had lighted a cigar, and I understood why Mrs. Ukridge
preferred to travel in another compartment, for
"In his hand he bore the brand
Which none but he might smoke."
I looked across the carriage stealthily to see how the girl was
enduring this combination of evils, and noticed that she had begun to
read. And as she put the book down to look out of the window, I saw
with a thrill that trickled like warm water down my spine that her book
was "The Manoeuvres of Arthur." I gasped. That a girl should look as
pretty as that and at the same time have the rare intelligence to read
Me ... well, it seemed an almost superhuman combination of the
excellencies. And more devoutly than ever I cursed in my heart these
intrusive outsiders who had charged in at the last moment and destroyed
for ever my chance of making this wonderful girl's acquaintance. But
for them, we might have become intimate in the first half hour. As it
was, what were we? Ships that pass in the night! She would get out at
some beastly wayside station, and vanish from my life without my ever
having even spoken to her.
Aunty, meanwhile, having retired badly worsted from her encounter with
Albert, who showed a skill in logomachy that marked him out as a future
labour member, was consoling herself with meat sandwiches. The niece
was demolishing sausage rolls. The atmosphere of the carriage was
charged with a blend of odours, topping all Ukridge's cigar, now in
full blast.
The train raced on towards the sea. It was a warm day, and a torpid
peace began to settle down upon the carriage. Ukridge had thrown away
the stump of his cigar, and was now leaning back with his mouth open
and his eyes shut. Aunty, still clutching a much-bitten section of a
beef sandwich, was breathing heavily and swaying from side to side.
Albert and the niece were dozing, Albert's jaws working automatically,
even in sleep.
"What's your book, my dear?" asked the Irishman.
"'The Manoeuvres of Arthur,' father. By Jeremy Garnet."
I would not have believed without the evidence of my ears that my name
could possibly have sounded so musical.
"Molly McEachern gave it to me when I left the Abbey. She keeps a shelf
of books for her guests when they are going away. Books that she
considers rubbish, and doesn't want, you know."
I hated Miss McEachern without further evidence.
"And what do you think of it?"
"I like it," said the girl decidedly. The carriage swam before my eyes.
"I think it is very clever."
What did it matter after that that the ass in charge of the Waterloo
bookstall had never heard of "The Manoeuvres of Arthur," and that my
publishers, whenever I slunk in to ask how it was selling, looked at me
with a sort of grave, paternal pity and said that it had not really
"begun to move?" Anybody can write one of those rotten popular novels
which appeal to the unthinking public, but it takes a man of intellect
and refinement and taste and all that sort of thing to turn out
something that will be approved of by a girl like this.
"I wonder who Jeremy Garnet is," she said. "I've never heard of him
before. I imagine him rather an old young man, probably with an
eyeglass, and conceited. And I should think he didn't know many girls.
At least if he thinks Pamela an ordinary sort of girl. She's a
cr-r-eature," said Phyllis emphatically.
This was a blow to me. I had always looked on Pamela as a well-drawn
character, and a very attractive, kittenish little thing at that. That
scene between her and the curate in the conservatory ... And when she
talks to Arthur at the meet of the Blankshires ... I was sorry she did
not like Pamela. Somehow it lowered Pamela in my estimation.
"But I like Arthur," said the girl.
This was better. A good chap, Arthur,--a very complete and thoughtful
study of myself. If she liked Arthur, why, then it followed ... but
what was the use? I should never get a chance of speaking to her. We
were divided by a great gulf of Aunties and Alberts and meat sandwiches.
The train was beginning to slow down. Signs of returning animation
began to be noticeable among the sleepers. Aunty's eyes opened, stared
vacantly round, closed, and reopened. The niece woke, and started
instantly to attack a sausage roll. Albert and Ukridge slumbered on.
A whistle from the engine, and the train drew up at a station. Looking
out, I saw that it was Yeovil. There was a general exodus. Aunty became
instantly a thing of dash and electricity, collected parcels, shook
Albert, replied to his thrusts with repartee, and finally heading a
stampede out of the door.
The Irishman and his daughter also rose, and got out. I watched them
leave stoically. It would have been too much to expect that they should
be going any further.
"Where are we?" said Ukridge sleepily. "Yeovil? Not far now. I tell you
what it is, old horse, I could do with a drink."
With that remark he closed his eyes again, and returned to his
slumbers. And, as he did so, my eye, roving discontentedly over the
carriage, was caught by something lying in the far corner. It was "The
Manoeuvres of Arthur." The girl had left it behind.
I suppose what follows shows the vanity that obsesses young authors. It
did not even present itself to me as a tenable theory that the book
might have been left behind on purpose, as being of no further use to
the owner. It only occurred to me that, if I did not act swiftly, the
poor girl would suffer a loss beside which the loss of a purse or
vanity-case were trivial.
Five seconds later I was on the platform.
"Excuse me," I said, "I think...?"
"Oh, thank you so much," said the girl.
I made my way back to the carriage, and lit my pipe in a glow of
emotion.
"They are blue," I said to my immortal soul. "A wonderful, deep, soft,
heavenly blue, like the sea at noonday."